Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Call Home Regularly While Travelling

Those wishing to avoid excessive roaming charges while exploring the far flung corners of the globe may assume that relying on emails and instant messaging services offer the best way to stay in touch with those left behind. There are, however, many cheap ways to call home while travelling, and plenty of reasons to do so – here are just seven of them.

1. To check on your housesitters. So you’re off on a year’s trip around the world and you’ve rented the house out to that lovely old Mrs Bates. Admittedly her son Norman was a little creepy, but everything will be alright, won’t it? There are simply some occasions when an email just can’t give you the reassurances you need, and a human voice can.

2. To gloat. You may have posted your photos on Facebook and kept your travel blog full of daring escapades and tantalising travel titbits, but nothing can make you enjoy your holidays more than hearing those miserable voices from back home still moaning about the weather, congestion on the road to work and humdrum details of their daily life. Make that call to really feel great about your break.

3. To borrow money. After kicking off your travels with a week in Monte Carlo, your carefully made travel budget plans may suddenly be looking about as secure as the Greek economy. When the chips are down, a pleading email for money just won’t give you the emotional edge that you require to secure that couple of thousand needed to carry out your itinerary. Make sure you’re ready to sound really desperate as your fingers dial home.

4. To secure favours. It’s lovely to get a phone call from a friend or relative who has been out of the country for a while and you can make that warm glow work to your advantage. Once you’ve made sure they’re feeling special and loved (“I just wanted to hear your voice to make me feel like I was home…”) you can get them working for you to finish off all those bits you didn’t get around to before dropping everything and taking off on your trip of a lifetime.

Garden watered – check. Mail opened and answered – check. Taxing your motorbike (“It’s just impossible from this godforsaken place”) – check. With just one or two phone calls it can be a done deal.

5. To apologise for the lack of birthday presents. That special anniversary or birthday really shouldn’t be missed just because you’re away. If there’s an internet connection, there is always Amazon and they’ll even gift wrap it for you. It just is so easy to forget dates back home when you’re far away from it but, don’t worry, a phone call can put things right. There is, however, one date that you forget at your peril. You don’t need to send a present but this could truly be your last trip anywhere, ever, if you don’t call home on Mother’s Day.

6. To speak to work. Sometimes we just need to extend our travels. After all, the flights have all been paid for and we’re already in Asia, so an extra couple of weeks won’t cost the earth ─ if only it can be squared with the boss. This one is best handled by a call rather than an email. And, if you need that job when you return get your reasons, excuses and sob stories straight before you’re connected.

7. Because it’s just so darn cheap! Calling home from abroad simply doesn’t have to be expensive. With internet calls offered by VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) services you can actually call home from most places in the world for free.

Skype allows you to make phone or video calls but with services like those offered by Vonage.co.uk you don’t even need a computer to make an internet call. Find out how to set up a new phone number that you can use from any phone near a broadband supply and you could be calling home from anywhere for the price of a local call. Now you have no excuses!